TEHRAN, 19 January 2005 — Iran’s judiciary admitted yesterday it had made an administrative error by summoning Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi to a national security court, and said there was no danger she would be arrested.
Judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimi-Rad also dismissed a complaint from Ebadi over the use of solitary confinement, saying such cells no longer existed and had been replaced by “comfortable suites”.
“The prosecutor reviewed the case when he learned it concerned Ebadi, and found some mistakes had been made,” Karimi-Rad told reporters.
He explained that the clerk who wrote the summons “was not experienced enough”, and had failed to state the reason for the summons and had also mistakenly called Ebadi to a branch of the feared Revolutionary Court - a body that normally handles political or national security crimes.
The case, he explained, concerned a private complaint about an “insult”. The spokesman also stressed this was also “pardonable”.
“The prosecution would like to see the plaintiff. He has not been found yet,” Karimi-Rad said. “It is a public case so should go to a public court and not a Revolutionary Court.
It is not a political or security case. There is no infringement, oppression or threat.”
Ebadi, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2003, said she welcomed the rare admission of a mistake but added similar errors were being made in other, less publicized cases.
“The fact that the judiciary has announced it will deal with the mistakes made in my being summoned to the Revolutionary Court is in line with the rule of law, and I hope this is done for all the accused who have been summoned for no reason,” she told AFP.
“Mine is no special case, and I hope other legal issues are followed up with the same amount of attention and speed,” she added, asserting that she still hoped that the “truth is known” over who filed the complaint against her.
Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, Ebadi’s lawyer and colleague, said the admission was “a positive step” but nevertheless “worrying that a private plaintiff had intended to smear Ebadi’s character and popularity.”
“If mistakes have been made, then the offenders must be pursued,” he added. Ebadi had been ordered to appear before the court to “provide some explanations” on her activities by Sunday or else be arrested.
She branded the summons illegal and refused to go to court as long as the charges against her were unspecified. Karimi-Rad confirmed that given the summons did not contain a reason for the court appearance, it was therefore “illegal”.
But the spokesman also said Ebadi should be “more tolerant” - an apparent reference to her public complaints that led to fresh criticism of the clerical regime from human rights groups and Washington.
As for the alarm expressed by the United States over the case, the judiciary spokesman said he was surprised that “America has the nerve to act as a defender of an Iranian citizen”.
Karimi-Rad also rejected Ebadi’s call Monday for the use of solitary confinement cells to end.
“There is no such thing as solitary confinement in Iran,” he said. “There are some suites for temporary detention or for cases where the judge thinks that the accused has to be kept separately for a short term.”
“They have all the facilities and are comfortable,” he added, insisting that detainees were not kept in such “suites” after a conviction.
